Help with teaching someone pitch (singing)

[simont]

Hi, I am a proficient musician/singer and am currently trying to teach someone to sing, she is a young teenager with no formal music training.

I have to admit that I have come to a slight stumbling block. She is unable to make her voice move up/down on command to reach/lower her voice to match a note. I think she knows when she's out of tune, but when I ask her to sing a little higher to match the right note (and when I mean higher we are talking several tones, not just half a semi) she moves her head upwards and thinks she has slid upwards chromatically but actually her sung note remains as it was. She can sing roughly along with a song, but when the melody jumps up/down more then a few semi's then she does not jump with it and is unaware that she is now not singing the same notes at all. I think it has to do with her listening and am letting her play sequential consecutive chromatic notes up and down within her vocal range to help her "listen" to chromatic changes and then to sing each note after having spent a few seconds thinking and singing it in her mind but actually out loud. But essentially I am running out of ideas. Can anyone suggest anything else I can try?

[TheWinner]

Not everyone can sing. Also, the people that can't sing don't always realise they are tone deaf. If you are being paid to teach her to sing, I think you should gently and kindly suggest that she may wish to choose a different "career" or hobby.

[simont]

Hi, yes I agree some people just can't sing. However, the evidence is that she can sing, either she is too nervous and worried perhaps that it is blocking her ability to "pitch match" or she really has never had the opportunity during her short life to experiment with her voice and is simply unable to control it. I actually think her ears as right, she can detect when I sing out of tune and whilst tuning my guitar can tell when two strings supposedly in unison are not.

[snapdarlich]

simont...I'm sorry I don't have a clue really what to suggest there, but I suppose you could take her away from the music completely and maybe relate to some modern pop songs...try just getting her to sing random glissandi up and down to free up the voice a bit.... but I really wanted to comment on what TheWinner said. I don't believe for any moment that people are tone deaf (or at least there's far fewer people around who are tone deaf) I really believe the problem is that people don't know how to listen. I studied music myself and have my LRAM and what I noticed from the kids is that if they were young enough could pick it up no problem...but bad habits or lack of using the ears and voice properly are picked up and make it harder to learn when you get older. Of course some people have raw talent and some are going to struggle...but I found even with my mother who had professed to be tone deaf all her life can now sing in tune. I just sat with her at the piano and got her to repeat the notes I was playing. To begin with she would just pick out a note maybe a tone or so away but when I got her to actually listen for a few moment and think of the sound of the note in her head, she hit it spot on. Now she's not a natural singer and still sings out of tune when she's not thinking about it. But it does show some hope that it's not impossible to sing in tune...even if you are tone deaf. She can sing a line on her own perfectly to her own tuning...but just getting it to match up at times can be a struggle but then she's never worked at it other than that time at the piano. So maybe don't just give up at the first block. Music's not the simplest thing after all.

[simont]

Thanks snapdarlich - that does give me great hope.

Actually at the brit school which I went to a decade or so ago, we had a friend who was a dance student who really really couldn't sing at all. Couldn't tell tone at all - couldn't tell the difference between high/low notes. He was literally tone deaf, many of us tried to help him sing, but it was impossible. The girl I am teaching is a far cry from that and I think very similar to your mother by the sounds of it, so that does give me hope.

Yes I think you right, it's the listening part she lacking, she is quite a "busy" person and I think she does need to relax and spend time just listening intensively at some music, tone and chromatic scales and other sounds. Placing the notes in her head before singing them, logically, is the only way to go.

Thanks

[Scarlett]

This is a tricky one. I find that if kids learn to sing at a young age, they can then sing forever. It's like, in order to create notes, you have to hear it, then your brain has to process it, then ask the muscles in your throat to contract or relax in order to form the correct tension to produce that note.
I have found that if you never use these "muscles" then the brain finds it very hard to engage with the system, and no connection is made. I am SURE it is a brain thing. I have also noticed that many kids who can't pitch are dyslexic- which makes me more convinced that it is a brain thing rather than just lack of practice or training.

Tell your student to feel the tension in her throat on high and low notes. When I teach kids harmony singing and they have to pitch a difficult harmony out of thin air, I tell them to sing the note and "feel" where it is in their throat, in their range. Very often they think it is lower and therefore more comfortable, so don't pitch high enough, and end up singing an octave below the tune which always sounds horrible!
I agree though that there is only a certain amount you can do, and it may be better to suggest she learns an instrument "to accompany her singing" which will make her a better musician and listener- piano or guitar. THEN deal with the singing a bit later.
I have never come across a 6 year old who is tone deaf, but I have come across several teenagers who are- and this is because they have never used their ears or stretched their (vocal) muscles, and got the brain linked up with it all. It is very hard to go from this level to be singing in tune once you are a teenager.. She is never going to be Christina or Mariah, sadly.

[beryllium]

Hi simont,
Have you tried recording her and then playing it back to her?
Then she can hear the difference in her pitch to the note? :)